Gary Oldman Decides It's Time We Started Talking About Mel Gibson Again

In an upcoming issue of Playboy, actor Gary Oldman revisits old Mel Gibson controversies and douses them with gasoline.

Last we left Gary Oldman, the brilliant British actor was gearing up to storm the summer box office in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, his most recent role as yet another villain. Oldman has chosen a compelling strategy to help get the word out about the movie.

Rather than a star's usual platitudes about the state of the world or a pontification on the theme of man versus beast as it loosely relates to the movie, Oldman decided it was time to tell the world to "get over" Mel Gibson's infamous anti-Semitic and racist episodes from 2006 and 2010, respectively. (If Gibson times his wiggings out to align with every World Cup, aren't we due for another?)

According to a Daily Mail teaser, here's some of what Oldman said:

Mel Gibson is in a town that’s run by Jews and he said the wrong thing because he’s actually bitten the hand that I guess has fed him - and doesn’t need to feed him anymore because he’s got enough dough. He’s like an outcast, a leper, you know?

But some Jewish guy in his office somewhere hasn’t turned and said, 'That f***ing kraut' or 'F*** those Germans,' whatever it is? We all hide and try to be so politically correct. That's what gets me."

Oldman added of Gibson: "He got drunk and said a few things, but we've all said those things."

Have we? Accusatorially to a cop? While being arrested? Also, the Hollywood's-full-of-Jews-hence-the-controversy tack is probably not the best way to go.

But on he went, saying that Jon Stewart and Bill Maher, who has been fired for saying the wrong thing, could get away with anything if presented under the guise of satire.

Bill Maher could call someone a fag and get away with it. He said to Seth MacFarlane this year, 'I thought you were going to do the Oscars again. Instead they got a lesbian.' He can say something like that. Is that more or less offensive than Alec Baldwin saying to someone in the street, 'You fag?' I don’t get it."

So what are we to make of this? Well, for one, actors are actors.

This happens to follow a strange trend with Oldman, who was rumored to be developing a bad rap among good Hollywood liberals around the time of the release of The Contender. This was linked by some to one of Oldman's many Oscar snubs.

Another odd episode involved the shelving (and unshelving) of a GQ profile of Oldman between 2009 and 2012.

News reports are focusing on the Germanwings pilot's possible depression, following a familiar script in the wake of mass killings. But the evidence shows violence is extremely rare among the mentally ill.